Before The Storm: An Acolytes of Chaos Story
by violethowler
Summary: Part 5/8 in the Acolytes of Chaos saga. Weddings and war meetings, relationship upgrades and ancient conspiracies. A series of one-shots showing life between the war against Xehanort and the rise of the Legion. Prequel to Kingdom Hearts IV: Connected Worlds
1. Episode 1: A New Day Is Dawning

**Hello dear readers and welcome to the fifth installment of the Acolytes of Chaos saga, Before The Storm. This is a prequel to the previous story, Kingdom Hearts IV: Connected Worlds, and it'll mainly just be a series of fourteen short, fluffy one-shots depicting what the characters are all up to during the six year time skip. These will cover everything from Maleficent scheming to Terra and Aqua's wedding. If you haven't read any of my previous Kingdom Hearts stories, go read those first because otherwise you'll be hopelessly lost. Go on, shoo. Everyone else all caught up? Good. On with the show.**

* * *

 **Episode 1: A New Day is Dawning:**

 **The Land of Departure – Throne Room; December 2015:**

 _This is it,_ Aqua thought to herself as she stood nervously in front of the large doors of the Land of Departure's throne room. _Today is the day._ After months of planning and preparation, today was the day she and Terra were finally getting married. They had been attracted to each other for years, but had refrained from acting on their crushes out of fear that Master Eraqus wouldn't approve. But when she looked through the contents of their teacher's study when she turned Castle Oblivion back into the Land of Departure, she found his will, in which he told them that he knew they had feelings for each other and not to deny how they felt on his account.

The two of them quickly made up for lost time, although the fact that he was still partially possessed by Xehanort limited their ability to see each other on a regular basis. Once Terra had been completely freed from Xehanort's control, they finally began dating openly. A month after Xehanort's demise, Terra worked up the courage to propose, and now, here they were. Inwardly, Aqua chastised herself. She had survived in the Realm of Darkness without breaking for over a decade, but now that she and Terra were about to tie the knot she was a nervous wreck? A comforting and familiar gloved hand reached over and squeezed her own. This managed to calm Aqua down as she looked down at the mouse king who would be walking her down the aisle.

Neither Terra nor Aqua had had normal childhoods. Terra's parents were killed by a mugger when he was a toddler, and he lived on the streets of San Fransokyo until he was thirteen. The kids at school bullied him for being an orphan, and the other kids at the orphanage often took their pain and frustration at life out on each other. Because he'd been there when the mugger had shot his parents, he'd developed a primal hatred for bullies of all shapes and sizes, and he had frequently gotten in trouble both at school and with the police for jumping in to a fight when he saw someone being hurt. He'd grown up constantly hungry, always looking over his shoulder, and his hand practically glued to the switch blade he kept in his pocket to protect himself. But then Master Eraqus had found him and took him in, gave him the stable home and supportive father figure he'd been lacking, and a purpose to keep him going.

Aqua's parents survived to raise her, but in her opinion they did a horrible job of it. Her mom and dad had been fairly wealthy, owned a big house on the Destiny Islands, but they never got along with each other. Always keeping secrets and having affairs left and right. Both of them kept making her keep their secrets by bribing her with candy, and she always felt awful as she sat on the couch with a bowl of candy while her mother had sex with her surfing instructor upstairs. When she was eleven, they finally decided to get a divorce, but they continued to argue, only this time, it was about which of them she would live with. Tired of being treated as an object by her own parents, she decided enough was enough and ran away. Her parents had sent the police out looking for her. Not because they actually cared about her well-being, mind you, but to make sure that the other didn't grab her up for themselves.

While she was running along the beach, she'd seen a shooting star fall from the sky further along the shore. Curious despite her situation, she crept forward and found two men, one older and one younger, standing on the beach. The younger one was only three years older than she was, and he asked her what was wrong. She told them both about her situation with her parents, and after talking to the boy in hushed whispers for a few moments, the older man produced a strange-looking swoard, and he asked her to hold it for a few moments as he said some (at the time) cryptic words. When it glowed brightly in the dark, the man asked her if she wanted to learn how to use his sword. Desperate to get away from her parents, she hastily agreed.

The boy introduced himself as Terra, and told her about other worlds and Keyblades while his teacher, Master Eraqus, lead them back into town. Aqua was reluctant to go anywhere near her parents, but Eraqus explained that if she was going to learn to wield a Keyblade with them, he didn't want anyone to think that he'd kidnapped her. Her parents had drilled the whole "stranger danger" routine into her since she was old enough to understand, but with parents like hers, who wouldn't jump at the chance to get away from them? Eraqus spoke to her parents and since the other didn't get custody of her, it was pretty easy to convince them to sign custody of her over to the middle aged Keyblade Master. Aqua never saw her parents again, and while she always felt slightly ashamed for thinking so, part of her said "good riddance" when she found out after Xehanort's demise that they'd perished when Destiny Islands was consumed by the Heartless during her imprisonment in the Dark Realm.

So since neither of them had parents to be there for the wedding, and Eraqus himself was dead, Mickey had volunteered to walk his old friend down the aisle on her wedding day. Aqua had happily accepted her friend's offer, and she took a deep breath as the large, heavy doors of the castle opened.

"Show time," she whispered as the music began to play. With practiced ease, she and Mickey walked down the castle's front steps to where the altar, aisle, and seats had been set up in the Forecourt. She looked up the aisle to see her fiancé gingerly checking his hair for any signs that his Xehanort-induced white roots were showing. She couldn't help but smile. Even when he was always trying to look serious and mature, he could still be a big dork sometimes. Because of Mickey's smaller stature, she had to walk more slowly so that the king could keep up. Not that she minded, really. Because taking longer to get to the altar simply meant more time to admire Terra's face. The music faded as she and Mickey finally reached the end of the aisle.

The ceremony was short but sweet. Everyone applauded for them when the priest from Atlantica announced that Terra could now kiss the bride. Almost everyone danced at the reception, and a recording of the Atlantica choir singing "Kiss the Girl" played as the bride and groom slowly glided back and forth across the dance floor. Some of the guests joked about the bridesmaids all being related to the bride when Aqua shared a glass of champagne with Kairi, Namine, Xion, and Yuffie. While Aqua wasn't particularly close to the "Great Ninja" of Radiant Garden, they'd still been friends since Ven had started inviting her over to the castle on the weekends.

The groomsmen were all loud and rambunctious as Dilan, Even, Aeleus, Ienzo, Lea, and Riku shared embarrassing stories of all the dirt they had on Terra from his days as Ansem's apprentice. The fact that it had been Xehanort's name and influence meant nothing to them. As far as the former founders of Organization XIII were concerned, the Keyblade Master had always been one of them. Eventually, the party wound down as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, and once the last guests had left the room, Ventus, Yuffie, and Vanitas left to spend the night in Radiant Garden. Their knowing smirks went unnoticed as Terra scooped Aqua up in his arms and carried his wife upstairs to their bedroom. It was time start with the lovemaking.

* * *

 **I made up Terra and Aqua's pre-Keyblade backstories myself. We don't know anything about what their life was like before they started training with Eraqus, but I decided to come up with backstories that gave context to their personalities and vulnerabilities in Birth By Sleep. Terra's so desperate to protect his surrogate family because he feels he couldn't protect his biological one, etc. I wanted to have some contrast between their upbringings, with Terra growing up in poverty on an urban world while Aqua grew up wealthy in a more rural location, but both had miserable childhoods.**

 **And yes, the similarities to Aladdin and Jasmine in the whole street rat/rich girl dynamic were intentional. Kingdom Hearts is a Disney franchise after all, there are bound to be parallels. And having the little paragraph focusing on Ven and Yuffie was an apology for killing them off in Connected Worlds. There will be more couples fluff throughout the fic (in fact, it's pretty much 40% fluff), so there's more where all this came from. The chapter title is a reference to the song "A New Day Is Dawning" from Kingdom Hearts 2, because of the whole "land and sea come together" thing matching with Terra and Aqua's theme naming.**


	2. Episode 2: Nowhere Else To Go:

**This chapter is actually going to take place a few months before Terra and Aqua's wedding. It's not going to be a recurring thing, just a bit of a flash back and then everything will keep moving forward like normal. Chapter lengths for these one-shots will vary depending on the subject and how much I end up writing about it.**

* * *

 **Episode 2: Nowhere Else To Go:**

 **Earth – Honolulu, Hawaii; September 2015:**

"Welcome to the bachelor pad," Xiruk remarked as he opened the door to the apartment to find two former Organization members standing outside his door. The Riku Replica couldn't help but feel a sense of smug satisfaction at seeing Isa's stunned blinking as he led his new roommates into his apartment in downtown Honolulu. His other roommate Zack got up from his recliner to greet the newest arrival from their old corner of the universe. Despite their vastly different paths in life, the four of them all had one thing in common. They'd all died as a result of the actions of Xehanort and Sephiroth, then were given a second chance at life through competition in the Reaper's Game.

Zack Fair had been the first of them to emerge victorious from the game a decade ago, around the time of the Fall of Radiant Garden. A bit of temporal distortion was involved in his case, since while he'd technically died a few years after the Fall, that had been on Olympus Coliseum time, which was several thousand years behind Radiant Garden time. So he'd technically died in 300 B.C., but the Reaper's Game decided not to spit him out until 2002. Because discussing the bizarre fact of having his past self running around at the same time he had come back from the dead, Zack didn't really talk about it that much, and the subject was left along.

Xiruk (he'd refused to just keep calling himself the Riku Repilica or Repliku or something weird like that, and decided to borrow Organization XIII's naming scheme) had come out of the game a decade after Zack had. Xehanort's time-travelling younger self had returned him from the battle in the Keyblade Graveyard to just before his final confrontation with the original Riku. His memories of the future had been returned upon his death, although many of them had been taken when he began the Reaper's Game, since his entry fee had been his identity. Being in the game had helped him bring himself out from Riku's shadow, and after he'd emerged from the game, the Society of Advanced Cultural Knowledge had set him up with an apartment in the Hawaiian Islands.

Since Zack didn't really have anywhere else to go, he and Xiruk had become roommates and was serving as the teenaged clone's legal guardian while he attended high school on the island of Kauai. As far as his school was concerned, Xiruk lived in an apartment near the town of Kokaua. But the apartment listed as his address in school records was actually a S.A.C.K. safe house where he could secretly call Gordon, the teleporting gatekeeper of the Inhuman community of Lai Shi, for a ride back over to Oahu. It would certainly make visiting his girlfriend easier since she was starting college in Honolulu this month while he still had a year of high school left to go.

Ludor and Isa entered the Reaper's Game only a month ago, within days of Xehanort's death. Ludor had emerged first, after only a week in the game, and had been living with the clone and the soldier for the last three weeks in the four bedroom apartment they'd all be sharing for the foreseeable future. The Society of Advanced Cultural Knowledge had been founded by people with knowledge of the Keyblade and its bloody history to prepare Earth for the day that the scattered fragments of the original world all fused back into one. But they had no way of knowing how long that would take. It could take six years, or it could be a century. But either way, everyone living in the four bedroom apartment was determined to make the most of their second chance at life.

"Make yourself at home," Ludor told the Organization's blue-haired former second in command as he walked into the kitchen and pulled three bottles of beer out of the refrigerator. He passed one to Zack and slid the second across the counter to the newly resurrected Isa before plopping down on the couch with his own. For a moment, Isa stared across the kitchen counter into the living room of the apartment at the absolutely mundane scene of Luxord and that warrior from the Coliseum, Zack, casually discussing some sport that they were currently watching on the medium sized TV. It was like some of the things he'd see his fellow Organization members get up to in their downtime, only with more energy and emotion since both participants actually had hearts to feel with.

It was funny. For so long, all the blue-haired man had ever wanted as a Nobody was to have his heart back. But now that he'd gotten it back after years of being a puppet of Xehanort's will, he was in so much emotional turmoil that he wanted to lose it all over again. Guilt and regret were foremost in his thoughts, whether it be over how he treated Xion, or for how quickly he and Lea had drifted apart. If he hadn't been so cold and stoic (even if it was Xehanort's fault, it was only because he'd embraced his complete and utter lack of emotion that the madman's heart had taken root so quickly in the first place), maybe all four of them could have been friends.

A beeping noise behind him snapped him out of his brooding, and he turned to find Vexen's Riku Replica – no, Xiruk, he reminded himself – pulling a pizza out of the oven. Zack and Ludor came over and grabbed some paper plates and started pulling their own slices off of the tray.

"Hey Isa," Xiruk commented. "Grab a plate and dig in before Zack eats the whole pie." Amused by the raven haired warrior's faux-offended tone, Isa complied and took a few slices for himself before his fellow colleague from the Organization offered him a seat on the couch. Since he'd be living on this world for the foreseeable future, Isa figured he might as well get to know the local customs, and made the mistake of asking about the sport that Zack and Ludor were watching on television. As the former soldier droned on and on about the rules of football, Isa caught Ludor smiling an apologetic smile that said he should have warned the former Luna Divner but wasn't about to bail him out yet.

The rest of the night went on with a familiar drone of camaraderie as the quartet traded stories of life on Earth, their experiences in the Reaper's Game, and what happened that got them all killed in the first place. A few hours later, Isa retired for the evening. The guys threw some sheets on the extra bed for him and promised to take him shopping for clothes tomorrow. As the former Nobody lay awake in bed staring at the ceiling, he couldn't help but think that given some time to adjust and a few friends who didn't care about his past in the Organization, he could come to like it here.

* * *

 **That's right. I'm shipping Riku Replica with Lilo in this story. The old Lilo & Stitch TV show introduced a guy she had a crush on, but I'm not going with that ship for 2 reasons. The first reason is that the guy in question was way older than her, and the second is simply because he was more of a bland plot device than an actual character whose sole purpose was to motivate Lilo's occasional zany schemes. So in my head-canon, that crush never went anywhere, and in this story, I decided that if Lilo was going to have a love interest, it would be a Kingdom Hearts character. I figured Repliku's status as a clone would appeal to Lilo's love of the weird and strange, so I went with that. **


	3. Episode 3: Relationship Upgrade

**This chapter is going to be one of the shorter ones since there's not really a lot going on. Just a fluffy Rokushi relationship upgrade. Don't be too disappointed that it's not as lengthy as the last two chapters.**

* * *

 **Episode 3: Relationship Upgrade:**

 **Twilight Town – Twilight High School Cafeteria; March 2016:**

The music was slow and romantic in the cafeteria of Twilight Town's high school. Teenagers danced with their dates and couples who had been going out for months now were trading kisses as they glided across the dance floor. Xion and Roxas on the other hand, were both nervous wrecks. While they both had romantic feelings for each other, neither of them had had much in the way of life experience before last year, and so both of them were as anxious as Sora and Kairi had been about telling each other how they really felt. Xion had been the one to ask Roxas to come to the dance with her, and after a few more minutes of awkward silence, she finally decided that it was time to just say what was on her mind.

"Roxas," she began nervously. _Oh my gosh, what am I thinking?_ She panicked mentally as her closest friend looked at her in confusion. _I can't do this. I just can't._ Her mental self-deprecation was cut off when Roxas finally responded.

"Yeah?" he replied. Inwardly, he was just as mentally panicked as Xion was. His anxiety was not helped by the fact that they still regularly slept in each other's beds to comfort each other through nightmares of their previous deaths and other traumatic experiences from their days in the Organization. _Come on Xion,_ she reminded herself as she took a deep breath. _Get it together. Just say what it is you want to say and get it over with._

"There's something I've been wanting to say for a long time," Xion answered. "And I wanted to say it now before it's too…" _Oh, who am I kidding?_ She thought to herself. _Words aren't enough to express how I feel about him after everything we've been through, so I might as well just let my actions speak for me._ With a deep, calming breath, she leaned closer to her dance partner and fellow ex-Organization member and gave the blonde a firm, passionate kiss on the lips.

A minute later, they broke apart, and she frantically looked away, blushing profusely and expecting rejection. After spending the majority of her life in the Organization with Saix belittling her on a daily basis for not performing well enough on missions, her self-esteem was still low. Lea, Roxas, and Namine had helped her boost her confidence, but whenever she encountered something new, she was terrified of failing or being rejected. The phrase "old habits die hard" was common for a reason after all. But she needn't have worried, because when she nervously turned to face her date, she had just enough time to see him smile before he kissed her back.

"I love you too," Roxas whispered as their lips parted once more and they resumed their dancing. Only this time, the clammy, awkward tension was gone, replaced by warm love and a blossoming romance. With the anxiety and fear of rejection swept away, the new couple remained on the dance floor and didn't stop dancing until the MC told everyone that it was time to clean up and go home. Namine gave them a thumbs up as she and Pence walked out of the cafeteria towards the parking lot, while Roxas and Xion followed behind holding hands the entire way. Neither of them had any nightmares that night, but they both slept in Roxas' bed anyway.

* * *

 **So yep, the official relationship upgrade for Xion and Roxas. I know it's super cheesy and probably a little clichéd, but 1) Sora and Kairi are no better, 2) Disney is known for fluffy romance scenes being cheesy, so it's pretty much a theme, and 3) Roxas and Xion learned everything they know about romance from watching their classmates in school. The cheesy romance clichés are part of pop culture for a reason. And no, Roxas and Xion did no sleep together in** ** _that_** **way. If you've read my other stuff you'd know that they take turns sleeping in each other's beds to deal with nightmares over their respective "deaths" in 358 Days and KH2. I know that I've established in Connected Worlds that unlike Sora and Kairi they aren't saving the sex for after marriage, but it's too early for that.**


	4. Episode 4: Senior Prom

**After last chapter's Rokushi fluff, now it's time for the SoKai chapter. Just a reminder, not every chapter is going to be a 1000+ word in depth thing. Some chapters will just be smaller day-in-the-life stories that'll only be a couple hundred words long.**

* * *

 **Episode 4: Senior Prom:**

 **Destiny Islands – Destiny High School Gymnasium; May 2016:**

Senior prom, Riku reflected, wasn't as exciting as he had expected it to be. Admittedly, that was mainly because of the fact that he, Sora, and Kairi had been held back a year as a result of all their travelling back during the war against Xehanort. Most of their friends had already graduated, and the three friends weren't that closely acquainted with the students in the current senior class at Destiny Islands High School. They were still friendly with everyone in their class and acquainted with most of their classmates, but they hadn't quite bonded as closely as they had with Tidus, Selphie, and Wakka.

The silver-haired Keyblade Master was currently sitting down at an empty table helping himself to the buffet. With everyone currently on the makeshift dance floor, he felt that it was a little too crowded for his taste and opted instead to take advantage of the lack of a line for food. While he didn't bring a date for prom, he still came anyway. Partially for the food, but also because a certain couple he knew had been nominated for prom king and queen. He could always find out later, but Riku wanted the satisfaction of hearing the results of the ballot in person. He smirked as he caught Sora and Kairi dancing together near the edge of the stage.

A hush fell over the crowded gymnasium as the MC of Destiny Island High School's senior prom walked up to the microphone up on stage. The dancing tonight had been lively, the food, while not fantastic, at least was decent enough to not be considered terrible. But now it was the moment that everyone had been waiting for. The results of the vote for Prom King and Queen. Every teen and adult in the large room cast hopeful glances at the couple that every single one of them was certain would win the vote by a landslide. At the edge of the dance floor, Sora and Kairi stood arm in arm looking up at the stage.

"And," the teacher in charge of tallying the results of the voting called out. "It's the moment you've all been waiting for. The crowning of your Senior Prom King and Queen!" The cheering quickly rose to a deafening roar and continued for several minutes before the faculty running the event could get the volume level of the crowd back under control.

"All right, everyone," the announcer went on. "I know we're all excited and we all have high expectations for the results of the vote, but can we please keep our heads on? Anyway, without further ado… By a staggering landslide vote… your Prom King and Queen are…. SORA AND KAIRI!" If the applause before the announcement was loud, it was as soft as a whisper in comparison to the applause rising up from the dance floor as the two stunned Keyblade Wielders were dragged by their friends towards the stage. Once the volunteers organizing prom had placed one crown on Sora's head, he took the other and gently lowered it on top of his girlfriend's head himself.

Confetti flew and the crowd went wild as Sora and Kairi embraced and passionately locked lips on stage. With the prom king and queen crowned, the dancing resumed, only now it was time for the slower, more romantic songs to take the place of the more upbeat music of the dance's first half. Sora and Kairi were in their own little world as they glided across the dance floor. A few hours later, the music stopped and the announcer was about to tell everyone that it was time to go home when all eyes turned to find Sora and Kairi still dancing together even though the music had stopped playing. Since the scene was too cute to interrupted, the announcer turned to the DJ and told him to give them one more song.

Riku smiled as he watched his best friends dancing arm in arm to the slow, romantic beat. He felt happy for the two of them. Back before their lives were complicated by things like Heartless and Keyblades, he'd had a crush on Kairi himself. While he used to get a sense of smug satisfaction from getting in the way of Sora's earliest attempts to woo Kairi, looking back, he questioned how he could be so immature. While his time abroad during Sora's Namine-induced coma had given Riku the time to reflect on his life and come to realize that his attraction to Kairi was only a shallow crush, there were still moments where he wondered what would happen if things had been different. Would he and Kairi have fallen for each other if he hadn't cast her and Sora aside in his own arrogance?

 _Doesn't really matter in the end,_ he thought to himself as the song ended. _Even if I hadn't ended up with Maleficent, Sora and I still would have fought over Kairi's affection anyway. For me to really have a chance, we would have had to switch places, and I wouldn't wish Maleficent's manipulations on anyone._ Pushing his contemplations aside, he smiled as he saw Sora give Kairi one more kiss as they stopped dancing and made their way back to the table. Riku was happy for his friends. Now wasn't the time to dwell on old crushes and what could have been. Now was the time to celebrate.

* * *

 **Sora and Kairi having one last dance after the prom is officially over is a shout out to the American Dragon: Jake Long AU fanfiction "Marked For Greatness." While Sora, Riku, and Kairi don't really have that much interaction with Tidus, Wakka, and Selphie outside of Selphie and Kairi hanging out at the beginning of KH2, but I like to think that they're all friends. Not quite the whole True Companions trilogy that Sora, Kairi, and Riku are, but still close friends nevertheless.**

 **And Riku's thinking about his crush on Kairi (since there were scenes in KH1 that seemed to establish him as Sora's romantic rival) and what it would have been like it he and her had actually gotten together, that is a reference to the amazing KH AU fanfiction series Antipode by MegaFlameHedge, which is basically built around the idea of "what if Riku got the Keyblade like he was supposed to?" The story may on the surface feel like a rehash of KH1 with Sora and Riku's places switched, but the author spices things up by making sure that Sora is in character, meaning Maleficent can't play Sora the way she does Riku in canon and so she and her fellow villains have to change tactics in terms of how they deal with him, while Donald and Goofy have to contend with a more arrogant and headstrong Riku running around with a Keyblade.**


	5. Episode 5: A Song of Ice and Fire

**Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday after four consecutive daily updates, but between work and going to see Suicide Squad with my parents, I had absolutely no time to write whatsoever, so I decided to just take a day off. And yes, this chapter title is a shout out to the novel series upon which the Game of Thrones TV series is based. As those of you who have read my previous fanfics can guess, this chapter will focus on Lea and Elsa.**

* * *

 **Episode 5: A Song Of Ice And Fire:**

 **Arendelle – Courtyard; June 2017:**

"You've really come along way with your powers in only two years," Lea commented as he watched Queen Elsa of Arendelle used her cryokinetic abilities to turn the courtyard of her palace into a public ice skating rink. It had become a tradition for her after her coronation, and she intended to keep it going. This year was no exception.

"Well, what can I say?" Elsa replied with a smirk. "I had a great friend who knew how to help me embrace them instead of trying to bottle them up inside. If I hadn't met you, things would probably have turned out a lot differently." With a flick of her wrists, she formed crystalline ice skates (made from actual ice) around their feet before the two of them skated off across the palace courtyard.

"Don't sell yourself short, Elsa," the red-haired Keyblade wielder remarked as he skated up beside her. "You're smart. You'd have figured it out on your own. It just would have taken a little bit longer. Besides, your sister would still be there to help you every step of the way." Elsa blushed a little at the former Organization member's flattery. The two of them had been friends for years now, ever since he'd helped her master her powers during the days surrounding her coronation. Over the past two years, the Key bearer and the queen had been close friends, with Lea helping Elsa master control over her magic while she provided a place to crash whenever he wanted to give his kids some time to themselves.

Once Roxas, Xion, and Namine started school, Lea completely embraced his role as their surrogate parent. He cooked meals, helped them with their homework, and taught them the facts of life. He gave Roxas the whole "birds and the bees" speech, took care of the three teens when they got sick, and worked long hours to pay the bills. But since they were old enough to look after themselves for a few days, Lea spent most of his days off flying over to Arendelle to visit Elsa, and whenever she had a chance to take a vacation for a day or two, she'd come visit him in Twilight Town.

"Well I'm glad you helped me speed things along, then," Elsa replied with a smile as she and Lea skated away from the crowds towards a more secluded corner of the courtyard, near the castle's side entrance. While their friendship was common knowledge and the public loved to gossip about when they were getting together, the two of them both had a dislike of crowds and enjoyed spending time together away from it all. Music began to drift towards them from the speakers Anna had insisted they install for public events, and an idea popped into Lea's head. When he say Elsa begin to skate in time to the beat of the song, he decided to seize the moment and held out his hand.

"May I have this dance?" he asked with a smile. Elsa blushed before she grabbed his hand, and the dance began. Although neither Lea nor Elsa were paying attention to the lyrics, they were surprisingly fitting all the same. The pyrokinetic swordsman and the cryokinetic queen danced and glided across the ice, back and forth across the narrow strip of the courtyard. Both of them felt exhilarated as they danced above the ice. And as the song ended, Lea, in the heat of the moment, leaned towards Elsa and pressed his lips against hers in a soft, romantic kiss. When he realized what he'd done, he began to pull away. If Elsa wasn't interested in pursuing a relationship and wanted to stay just friends, he'd respect her wishes.

But before he could get more than a few inches away, Elsa tightened her grip on his hands and skated off, dragging him along with her. She pulled him into an empty storage room off the courtyard before she wrapped her arms around him and kissed him back. Neither of them really needed to say anything. Neither of them really needed to say anything. They had both come to realize that they saw each other as more than just friends months ago, but each had waited for the other to make the first move. Now that their feelings were out in the open, there was no need for discussion. The only discuss that needed to happen was when Anna and one of the servants came looking for them when it was time to take down the ice rink. Even though gossip of what had happened never reached beyond the castle walls, neither of them were ever going to hear the end of this.

* * *

 **Like Roxas and Xion, Lea and Elsa became a couple during the time skip between The Xehanort War and Connected Worlds, and I wanted to show the moment where they officially upgrade from just friends to a couple. I left the song intentionally vague because I couldn't find a song that I felt fit their dynamic in this story so I decided to leave it open for you all to insert whichever song, Disney or otherwise, that you felt worked in your own head.**


	6. Episode 6: Avenging the Holidays

**After five one-shots set at the Kingdom Hearts end of space, I figured that now it's time for a chapter focused on the Avengers and their lives. And what better way to do that than through a Christmas party episode. Get ready for hilarious and heartwarming moments.**

* * *

 **Episode 6: Avenging the Holidays:**

 **Earth – New Avengers Headquarters: December 2017:**

Christmas Eve at Avengers Headquarters was a slow moving train wreck barely kept in check by Pepper's iron will, Ron's cooking, and Captain America's leadership skills. Bruce and Betty were tag-teaming on the vegetables while Thor flew around in the sky making sure they were getting just the right amount of snow. Natasha and Bucky were assigned the position of acting chefs for the evening, leaving everyone else to help with last minute decorating. The only exception was Darcy, who everyone knew by a combination of experience and intuition was camping out in Tony's wine cellar that he'd installed the previous year.

The Avengers' headquarters had expanded considerably in the last five years, adding in more residential sections and training facilities after some Asgardian archenemy of Thor's named Skurge had shown up at the Tower two years ago looking for a fight. The ensuing battle completely leveled the tower, and the team unanimously decided that it would be more practical to just expand their headquarters than to rebuild the tower from scratch. They didn't really need to expand all that much. They already had enough guest rooms to accommodate everyone's families when they visited for the holidays, it was just a matter of making sure there were enough bedrooms and training facilities for their new recruits.

While Steve, Wanda, Kim, Pietro, and Rhodey were helping to take the food out of the oven and help set the table, their guests arrived. Not a lot of the Avengers really had family that they wanted to spend the holidays with, but they still always had extra company just the same. Phil Coulson and his wife Rosalind were the first to arrive, followed shortly by Nick Fury and Maria Hill. Nana Possible was next, since most of the Possible and stoppable families were spending the holidays in Middleton. The final guests to arrive were Clint Barton's wife Laura and their three children, preceeded by Drakken and Shego. Kim and Ron had invited the reformed supervillains over since neither wanted to endure the holidays with their own families.

As everyone took their seats around the dinner table, Steve couldn't help but wish the entire team had been here. Scott and Hope, their newest members, were spending the holidays in San Francisco so that they could be with Scott's daughter and Hope's father for Christmas. Sam was visiting with his own family but sent the rest of the Avengers his best wishes, while T'Challa was off spending quality time with his father back in Wakanda. But even so, Captain American was comforted by the fact that every single one of his teammates was safe and happy for the holidays. The super soldier wouldn't have it any other way. He only wished that Peggy was able to join in the festivities, but because of an emergency meeting of the S.A.C.K.'s leadership council, she had been unable to attend the party.

 _Oh well,_ he thought to himself as he raised his sat down at the table. _At least we can have a family celebration later. At least everyone didn't pry any further into Peggy not aging, or the S.A.C.K. would have been exposed. Thankfully, I'll be able to celebrate Christmas with my family and my team at the same time._ After he'd learned Peggy was alive through the use of Atlantean crystals to stay young, he'd proposed to her almost on the spot. They'd gotten married a few months after the battle of New York, on the anniversary of the day S.H.I.E.L.D. dug him out of the ice. And their first child, Sharon Jane Rogers, was born a few months short of a year later.

Living a double life was something Steve didn't really enjoy, so after they'd gotten engaged, Steve and Peggy had come up with a cover story to explain her lack of aging to the rest of the team. Peggy was keeping her survival a secret from the press, but S.H.I.E.L.D. and the Avengers at least deserved to know what he was up to when he took off to spend time with his wife and child. Thankfully, they'd managed to convince everyone that Peggy had been inadvertently infected with a biological weapon by S.H.I.E.L.D.'s enemies in the years after World War II that kept her body locked in a quasi-stasis that slowed her from aging. Thankfully, the team bought it, and Coulson and Hill's membership in S.A.C.K. meant that S.H.I.E.L.D. respectfully didn't pry any further even if they were skeptical of the story.

He shoved all those thoughts aside as he looked to his left and saw his daughter smiling as she looked around at all the food and fancy decorations. Once everyone had taken their seats, he raised his glass and proposed a toast."

"To the things that endure," he said. "To friendship and family. Merry Christmas."

* * *

 **The destruction of Avengers Tower is another reference to the amazing Harry Potter/Avengers crossover Child of the Storm, only in that it was because of a self-destruct sequence to keep Tony's tech out of HYDRA's hands. The final line of dialogue is a quote from the Christmas Special in chapter 73. The references to Skurge are a shout out to Thor: Ragnarok, since even if none of the marvel movies after Ant Man take place in this universe, that doesn't mean that the Avengers have spent the entire six year time skip doing nothing all the time. Same goes for having Coulson and Rosalind together from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. I love that pairing, and since she isn't dead in this universe, I'm having her show up from time to time.**

 **And yes, I have just retconned Sharon Carter to being Steve and Peggy's daughter. I didn't really feel that the relationship between them in the MCU canon (Steve and Sharon that is, I'm a Steggy shipper to the core) was particularly compelling. Besides the weird factor that she's his ex-girlfriend's niece, I just didn't think that they really had that great chemistry. So like Nimbus Llewelyn in Child of the Storm, I reworked things so that they were related and removed the romance to avoid the weirdness factor. Of course, since this means Sharon was an infant at the time of The Winter Soldier, Steve's S.H.I.E.L.D. guard was a generic S.H.I.E.L.D. observer.**


	7. Episode 7: First Contact

**After last chapter's Christmas episode, this chapter will cover something more plot-relevant. More specifically, the day of Earth's official induction into the United Galactic Federation.**

* * *

 **Episode 7: First Contact:**

 **New York City – United Nations Headquarters; November 2018:**

"Hold still, Stitch," Lilo whispered as she adjusted her alien friend/pet's tie. "Quit squirming. You know today's a big day for all of us." And indeed it was, for today was the day of Earth's official induction into the United Galactic Federation. After Lilo graduated high school three years ago, the Grand Councilwoman contacted her with an offer to become a full-fledged member of the Federation council after eight years as Earth's unofficial ambassador. There were some job prerequisites that needed to be completed before that could happen, though. First came the intensive three year training program on Turo for representatives of new worlds. Once she'd finished that, the last six months had been spent in talks with the U.N. General Assembly to hammer out the finer details of Earth's membership in the Galactic Federation.

Public reaction to joining the Federation was mixed, but primarily positive. There were a lot of people who were understandably distrusting of aliens after the Chitauri invasion back in 2012, but for the most part, plenty of people (particularly sci-fi fans and the residents of Kauai who were used to living with Stitch's cousins) embraced the prospect of joining the intergalactic community. Since Earth was a less technologically developed world than most other Federation member planets, Federation merchants and the Galactic Armada would provide the resources to help Earth's technology progress enough to be on equal footing with the rest of the galaxy. \

And while the Galactic Armada was responsible for protecting all planets in Federation space, the fact that Earth already had organizations such as S.H.I.E.L.D., The Avengers, and The Defenders, a compromise was struck. The Galactic Armada would be responsible for protecting Earth from extra-terrestrial threats, while S.H.I.E.L.D. would handle supernatural threats down on the ground. The Armada would notify Earth of any alien criminals headed for Earth for S.H.I.E.L.D. and the other protectors of Earth to take care of, and they in turn would give the Armada a head's up when a bad guy from Earth took off into space. The details had already been worked out last month. Now today was the ceremony that made all of it official.

Since Lilo was Earth's first representative on the galactic council, her entire family was there. Jumba and Pleakley (who'd surprisingly ended up getting hitched when the Supreme Court declared same sex marriage legal), Stitch, Nani, and David were all there. The whole family was currently gathered in a small antechamber waiting for the ceremony to start. Unfortunately, it was going to be another hour before the ceremony finally started. The Grand Councilwoman herself was visiting to oversee the ceremony, along with a delegation of representatives from nearby federation planets in Earth's galactic neighborhood. The ceremony was going to be fairly straightforward. The UN Secretary General and the Grand Councilwoman would both make speeches, then Lilo would be introduced, she'd give a speech, and then she'd shake hands with the federation delegates, and after that, the ceremony would be over.

"Are you nervous?" Nani asked as she sat in a plush chair next to the refreshment table, cradling her one year old daughter, Lilo's niece, in her arms.

"Why would I be?" Lilo asked sarcastically, her anxiety over having to give a speech to the entire human race showing in her voice. "I mean, it's only a speech to all mankind. It's not like a life or death situation or anything that could cause an intergalactic incident if I screw up."

"Relax, little girl," Jumba reassured her as he put a comforting hand on his niece's shoulder while Stitch gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. "Is not end of world. Nobody expecting you to get everything perfect right away. You have practiced speech enough times that you know words by heart. Besides. Older Queen Kida pulled strings to get boyfriend Xiruk front row seats." Lilo blushed a shade of red the Riku Repilica would consider nearly identical to Lea's hair, and took a deep breath to calm her nerves. The rest of her family laughing along with Jumba's gentle teasing helped to avert the impeding freak out.

"Thanks Jumba," she replied. "I needed that." An hour later, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Rose Long came to let them know that the ceremony was starting. It was showtime.

* * *

 **The details of Lilo's training to become Earth's representative in the Galactic Federation were inspired by an ongoing Lilo & Stitch fanfiction called The Exodus, which had a similar plotline. I figured that similar story elements would be appropriate here in order to depict the process of Earth being welcomed into the intergalactic community. As for Jumba and Pleakley being a couple, with the way they interact with each other in Lilo & Stitch: The Series, it's hard not to picture them as ending up together at some point. Go rewatch the show and tell me that there's not even a little bit of dialogue that comes across as blatant Ho-Yay. **

**Nani and David having a kid is a reference to the Stitch anime, which, while I personally consider non-canon in my mind, had some interesting ideas. The English dub of the first season implied that Stitch was away from Lilo because she was ignoring him and spending all her time with some boyfriend, but the actuality of it, as revealed in the third season, which never aired in the U.S., was a lot more complicated and honestly, pretty sad. Basically, Stitch took a vacation to explore the galaxy while Lilo was in college, and they promised that on the day he got back, they'd meet up at the beach. But when Stitch got there, Lilo never showed, and after waiting for hours, he took off the tiki necklace she gave him in Leroy & Stitch and headed back into space. But the reason Lilo never showed up was because Nani had gone into labor, and by the time she left the hospital, Stitch was already gone. **


	8. Episode 8: Simulated Sea

**Time for a little bit of TRON: Uprising love. This is going to be a TRON focused chapter this time.**

* * *

 **Episode 8: Simulated Sea:**

 **Radiant Garden – Merlin's House; October 2018:**

"I'll never understand Users," Beck remarked as he watched Yuffie pass out candy to the latest batch of "Trick-or-Treaters" to come to the door. Ever since Braig had merged the Grid with Space Paranoids three years ago, programs had come and gone freely between the real world and the virtual one. As a result, Tron, Mara, Beck, Zed, and Paige started learning more about Users and their ways than they had ever learned when Flynn was still around. The former revolutionaries found some parts of user behavior and society fascinating. Other parts however, were as confusing as ever.

"It's weird, isn't it?" Paige added as she looked up from the electric piano that had been set up for the Halloween party that the Restoration Committee members were hosting at Merlin's house. While the medic and mechanics hadn't been part of the Committee initially, Tron had, and had invited them along to the celebration as his guests. One thing about the user world that Paige had embraced was the variety of music they had to offer. As an aspiring musician herself, it gave her a thrill to learn new styles of music that she had never previously believed possible. "Why do they celebrate holidays that are little more than an excuse to go door to door begging for candy?" she went on.

"Beast me," Zed commented as he and Mara danced around the expanded-for-the-occasion living room to the beat of "Circle of Life," a popular song from The Pride Lands that Paige was playing on the piano. "Users are weird, but they create all kinds of amazing vehicles."

"Tell me about it," Mara interjected. "Cloud's motorcycle needed a tune up the other day. I'll never get tired of fixing a bike by hand. It's so much more fun than just tweaking code."

"Definitely," Beck added as he leaned over and gave Paige a kiss on the cheek. Beck and Paige had been a couple for countless cycles or "ages" as the Users liked to say, but Programs never really indulged in the User tradition of "kissing". But Beck felt that when in the User world, it would be fund to act like a user sometimes. His attempts were clumsy and hilarious, but well intentioned. After she finished the song, Paige, returned the gesture, only she planted her lips squarely on Beck's own. Tron smiled as he watched the young programs he'd mentored during CLU's reign of terror enjoyed the quirks and wonders of the User world. He just wished that Yori could be there to share this experience with him.

He'd always told Beck that he'd paid a heavy price for letting his friendship with Cyrus cloud his judgement, but he had never specified what that price was. As a favor, Flynn had brought his girlfriend Yori over from the Encom server, and she had helped him protect the grid while she helped design all the vehicles and buildings of the system. When Clu seized power, she went underground, and upon receiving word of the security program's survival, she made her way out to Argon. She had been the one to design and construct the mountain hideout where he and Beck had staged their revolution against Clu. When Cyrus went insane and tried to destroy the Grid, she, Tron, and Abel were the ones to stop his attempt and seal him away, but not without the cost of Yori's life.

In his madness, Cyrus had developed a virus that slowly caused programs infected with it to derezz voxel by voxel until all that was left was their light suit. Cryus had managed to infect Yori with it right as she forced him inside the Compressed Space Abel had constructed that would serve as his prison for the next several cycles. Tron could only watch in horror as the woman he loved rapidly disintegrated before his eyes. Stricken with grief, Tron couldn't bring himself to look at her light suit, feeling that he had failed her. Abel had taken it back to his garage and used it to create a private memorial to her in his office. When his memories returned after he'd recovered from his repurposing into Rinzler, the memories of her death were foremost in Tron's mind.

But now was not the time to dwell on survivor's guilt and bitter regrets. Clu's regime had been toppled, and Tron and his friends were enjoying an experience that few other programs were able to. _She would have wanted me to be happy,_ the security program reminded himself as he started on his second stick of Sea Salt Ice Cream. _She would have wanted me to enjoy this._ It had been eighteen years since her derezzolution. It was time to move on from his guilt and regret and live. _I will always love you, Yori,_ he thought silently as, at the encouragement of Beck and the rest of the Restoration Committee, he stepped out onto the dance floor.

* * *

 **I'm a huge TRON: Uprising fan and that show really needs more love, so I basically include references to it and give the cast scenes in my KH works whenever the story allows me to. Eventually I'll get around to writing a story of my predictions for what Season 2 would have been like had the show not been abruptly cancelled back in 2013. Or Season 3. Because of how little Disney advertised the show, it's very hard to tell if the show was supposed to be two 9-10 episode seasons or one 19 episode season. Personally, the Scars 2-parter (episodes 9-10) feels like a season finale to me, so my head canon until another season or a DVD/Blu-Ray release says otherwise, I'm going with 2 9-episode seasons with the exclusion of the pilot episode.**

 **Anyway, everybody check it out, and if you like it, send an email/letter to Disney and/or Netflix asking them to continue the show and/or put it back on Netflix. We all need answers to lots of important questions. Did Paige ever defect to the resistance? Will she and Beck end up together? Will Zed and Mara? Just** ** _how_** **did Tron go from rebel leader to Rinzler? We need answers, fellow Uprising fans, and even if it takes a comic book mini-series or a DTV movie, we need to push for them to happen someday.**

 **The subplot about Yori being killed by Cyrus is my attempt at explaining both her absence from the franchise after the first movie and the easter egg of her light suit being on display in Abel's office in Uprising. TRON: Uprising gushing aside, I'm going to be taking tomorrow off from writing. I'll be spending quality time with my family and I don't want to have to worry about making room in my schedule to write the next chapter. So the next one will come on Saturday.**


	9. Episode 9: Come As You Are

**After all the chapters in previous stories focusing on the Avengers, it's time for the Netflix heroes to get a day in the limelight. That's right, folks. This is going to be a chapter focused on The Defenders. The chapter title is a reference to the song that plays in the teaser trailer revealed at San Diego Comic Con a few weeks ago.**

* * *

 **Episode 9: Come As You Are:**

 **Hell's Kitchen – Nelson and Murdock Office; January 2019:**

"Five. Four. Three. Two. One. HAPPY NEW YEAR!" Foggy Nelson called out enthusiastically as the small crowd gathered in the offices of Nelson and Murdock: Attorneys At Law raised their glasses and cheered. After a week of crime fighting across Hell's Kitchen, the defenders of Hell's Kitchen had settled in for a relaxing New Year's party. After dealing with Wilson Fisk, Killgrave, and a bunch of other bad guys both large and small scale, the last two years had been relatively peaceful. As the assorted superheroes living across Manhattan banded together to protect the innocent, local crime rates had dropped considerably.

As the self-proclaimed Defenders started working together to help the people of New York City, they began working together in their everyday lives as well. Jessica and Angela's P.I. business provided Nelson and Murdock with information for their cases, while the two lawyers covered everyone's legal defenses. Luke Cage's Hero's for hire helped redirect clients whose situation required the expertise of another one of the Defenders, and provided Peter Parker with a part time job that helped him earn some extra money to help his Aunt. Overall, the system they had going had worked out for everyone so far in the last six years. But now was not the time to dwell on the past. Now was the time to celebrate their successes and ring in the new year.

Once everyone had finished sipping their celebratory drinks, they proceeded with the grand New Year's tradition of giving someone a kiss. Foggy leaned over and gave Karen a smooch on the lips, while Elektra and Matt had already started a full make out session in the corner. Luke gave Claire a polite kiss on the cheek, while Jessica, being Jessica, abstained from kissing anyone in favor of another swig of booze. Peter kissed his girlfriend, Mary Jane, while Trish gave Danny Rand a platonic kiss on the cheek. As the kisses all broke up, conversation turned towards the usual hilarious anecdotes of crazy things that had happened to them all, whether it was in their everyday lives or out on the street fighting crime.

As the party wound down and everyone began heading home for the night, most but not all of them as sober as an alcoholic in the world's largest bar, Matt couldn't help but with that he and Elektra had patched things up with Stick when they had the chance. They'd both been pissed with the old man when they learned of all the secrets he kept from them both, but now they were beginning to regret telling him they never wanted to see him again. He had been a father figure to the two of them at times in their lives when they needed a surrogate parent, and despite his gruff demeanor, demeaning attitude, and seemingly pathological inability to tell the truth, he still cared about them as if they were his own kids, and they missed having him in their lives.

* * *

 **In this universe, Spider-Man is part of the Defenders instead of the Avengers for two reasons. Reason number one is because of his age, since I doubt any of the Avengers would be comfortable with the idea of a teenager being stuck in the kind of life or death situations they typically end up in. Reason number two is because he mainly fights bad guys in New York City, while the Avengers tend to focus on big, international end of the world stuff. So I figured it would make sense that he'd run into the Defenders more often than the Avengers, so I figured it would make more sense logistically speaking to have him on the crime fighting team rather than the save the world team.**

 **I tweaked with the canon events of Daredevil, Jessica Jones, etc. for this universe. Daredevil Season 2 didn't really happen. Sure, the whole Punisher storyline still happened, and Elektra passed through town to make amends with Matt, but the whole storyline with the Chaste and the Hand didn't happen both to reduce the amount of bad guy factions you and I all have to keep track of in this saga, and because I have bigger plans for both that require keeping Nobu alive. And I kept Foggy and Karen together because I felt she had better chemistry with Foggy than with Matt. I know the show never really did a love triangle thing, but the way things were going in Season 1 implied she and Foggy would eventually get together.**

 **I also really liked the chemistry Matt had with Elektra, so I had them reconcile some time during this whole time ship so that both of them would be on the same team when all the action starts on Earth. That and because my plans for the Chaste involve a bit of Adaptaional Villainy and I don't want Elektra on their team. She's still a Black Sky in this universe, but now you all already know what that means. Enjoy figuring it out for yourselves. ;) All I will say is that when certain characters heard what it meant, they did a spit take. Brownie points to those who figure out the reference, but please don't spoil it for the readers who don't get it.**

 **Undecided on the romantic pairings for Iron Fist, Luke Cage, and Jessica Jones, since the first two shows aren't out yet and the way things ended between her and Luke implied they wouldn't get together, so I left everything vague for those three. Feel free to imagine on your own who they end up with. And Matt's reminiscence of Stick will quickly take a turn for the ironic in future stories. But rest assured that while the Chaste will technically be bad guys, there's a reason for that, and it has to do with their secret war with the Hand in conjunction with their origins. I included Angela Del Toro (White Tiger) in the Defenders because of some production news going around suggesting that she'll be part of the team, so I wanted to give a little nod to that.**


	10. Episode 10: A Plaything of the Body

**And now for something completely different. After nine chapters focused solely on the heroes and their personal lives, it's time for a chapter or two about the villains. What was the Unchained Legion doing between the end of The Xehanort War and the start of Connected Worlds, you ask? This chapter should give you all a piece of the overall puzzle of what their goals and motivations are. This chapter may seem a little weird at first, but things will make sense as the chapter goes on.**

* * *

 **Episode 10: A Plaything of the Body:**

 **The Great Forest – Lake Island: November 2019**

The moment he opened his eyes, career criminal Turk Barrett knew that something was wrong. For one thing, he had fallen asleep in bed with his latest "date" yet had somehow woken up in a field of freezing snow. For another, he was completely naked and there was no sign of civilization in any direction. With no clothes or any other protection from the weather, the New York City resident began shivering worse than when Daredevil and his partners came down on his criminal operations.

"Where the hell am I?" he whispered as he pushed himself up from the ground and looked around. Although he was self-conscious about the fact that he was wandering around naked, self-preservation dictated that he explore his surroundings and figure out a way out of this situation. An hour later, he was severely dehydrated and freezing cold, and just when he was about to give up hope of finding anything to drink, he found an unopened bottle of lemonade leaning against a nearby tree, kept cool by the frozen snow. All rational thought went out the window as the dehydrated criminal twisted the cap off and chugged the entire bottle. In his rehydrated relief, he was oblivious to the tingling that swept up and down his body.

As he finally finished off the bottle of the beverage that wasn't really lemonade, he found that he suddenly didn't feel as cold anymore. Now that he could think clearly again, he looked down to examine himself. And that was when he let out a horrified scream. Almost very square inch of his body below his chin, with the sole exception of certain parts between his legs, was covered with thick brown fur. A loud and lengthy stream of expletives flew from his mouth as he patted himself down and pinched himself to make sure that this was neither a dream nor a hallucination.

Once he confirmed that this was indeed reality, he bolted across the field in a blind panic. After half an hour of sprinting, he calmed down and began to think things through. As he contemplated what and how had happened to him, he realized the benefit of having a fur coat while trapped naked in the wilderness. He could get used to the pelt, and besides, he could always shave himself when he got back to civilization. As he set off through the trees around him in search for a sign of where he was, he remained oblivious to the elderly Chinese woman watching him under the veil of a Vanish spell.

Madame Gao smiled as she watched her newest test subject stop walking in realization, and reach down to touch his new cloven hooves. The potions brewed by Yzma had provided the Unchained Legion with an unexpected solution to a problem they had been wrestling with since High Praetor -now Imperator- Skuld came up with the idea of The Endgame. Namely, what to do with the scum of the world. Once The Endgame was complete, the Unchained Legion planned to purge the world of darkness, but none of them could agree on how to do so.

Everyone agreed that villainous scum like Xehanort and Maleficent would need to be killed because of their power, but mortals who were steeped in Darkness needed to be disposed of. Centurion Stephen believed that those with high quantities of Darkness in their hearts could be rehabilitated, while High Praetor Robert believed that everyone with a trace of darkness in their heart should be executed. With the discovery of Yzma's animal transformation potions, Gao had come up with a solution. Those with a low quantity of darkness in their hearts could be transformed into livestock animals such as horses and goats, while those whose hearts were overflowing with Darkness would be turned into wild game such as deer or boars for the Legionnaires to hunt at their convenience.

The solution satisfied everyone, and now the discovery of Zootopia had given Gao a new idea to experiment with. With some magical and chemical modification, she hoped to create a variation of the Night Howler plant that, rather than turning a sentient animal feral, would rewire the minds of the humans being transformed with Yzma's potions in favor of their new forms' instincts and behavior. Turk Barrett was one of the targets being used as a test subject for the first batch of her "Animorphic Cocktail", and the results were working almost as predicted. The man was well on his way to becoming a magnificent stag, yet while he was exhibiting the behavior of his new body, he was clearly acting erratically, indicating that the Night Howler mixture needed to be fine-tuned a bit before the End Game.

"Nice work, Praetor," a gruff voice called out, and she whirled around to find Centurion Stephen walking up behind her. Although she could see him, her magical senses told her that he too was concealed from the test subject's sight by a Vanish spell. "Praetor Stone sent me to check in with you on the progress of your Night Howler experiments on my way back to our division headquarters." _Ah yes,_ she remembered. _The Chaste._ Each of the four Praetors of the Unchained Legion's High Council was given command of one quarter of their forces. And each division fulfilled a specific task in the grand scheme of their operations.

The now defunct Huntsclan, under the command of Praetor Samantha, were charged with protecting humanity from the decadent influence of Earth's magical races. Praetor Pat's unit was assigned the task of protecting the Earth from external threats like the Chitauri and Thanos (The Battle of New York was a major collective embarrassment for the Legion, and they were glad they didn't have to deal with any public scrutiny). Gao herself was in charge of preparing for The Endgame, while Warden Lerena was given command of an elite black ops unit that dealt in intelligence gathering and assassinations. All four divisions reported to one of the two High Praetors, and they in turn reported to the Imperator.

But Stone's group, The Chaste, they were the threshold guardians. Their job was to guard the Realm of Light against the return of The Fallen Ones. The pure light of the seven Princesses of Heart kept the dark demons at bay, but if even one of them were to be destroyed, it would crack open the seal keeping the Fallen from returning to Earth. And there was a cult of demon worshipers who actively attempted to break the barrier. And their ideas of using the spawn of that Inhuman half breed Sephiroth as weapons of war was simply repulsive. But she was getting off track. She had a progress report to deliver.

"Thank you, Stick," she replied with a smile as she gave her report and the blind Unchained departed through a Corridor of Light. She wasn't worried about the lab rat (or lab stag in this case) seeing. His mind was already too far gone to realize what he was seeing or what it meant.

* * *

 **The title of this chapter is a reference to the trope where people who change forms, like shapeshifting into an animal for example, their mind, personality, and perception changes to fit their new form. Fitting given what happened to Turk during this chapter. Speaking of, Turk Barrett is that guy from Daredevil who was running the sex slave trafficking ring in the first episode and kept getting beaten up/arrested in almost every subsequent appearance.**

 **So now you all know what the Legionnaires were stealing Yzma's potions and the night howlers are for. That's not going to be as big of an impact on the plot. It'll come up again, but the main focus will be on the mysterious Endgame and figuring out what that is and how to thwart it. We're going to get another "good guy" chapter after this one, and then the final chapter will deal with Maleficent and her team getting ready to bust Loki out of prison.**

 **Madame Gao's reference to "The Fallen Ones" isn't going to play a role in the Acolytes of Chaos saga. That's just a seed that's being planted for the Invaders From Beyond Saga whenever I get around to it. Just like to flesh out the universe even as I push the main storyline forward, so that'll be something to keep your eyes out for later on.**


	11. Episode 11: Heroic Blue Screen of Death

**Another TV Tropes-based chapter title. I'm not going to explain it this time though. I'll lt you all figure it out for yourselves.**

* * *

 **Episode 11: Heroic Blue Screen of Death:**

 **Radiant Garden – Community Center; June 2020:**

Whoever coined the phrase "Time heals all wounds," Even reflects, has clearly never had an encounter with any incarnation of Xehanort. For although the other members of the Xehanort Survivors Anonymous support group that Ienzo came up with in the wake of the old man's downfall have managed to move on from the trauma of what they've done and what they'd been forced to endure, the scars of Xehanort's influence and machinations would always linger. Not all wounds, the Chilly Academic feels, are healed so easily. But after meeting together for five years, everyone in the support group has learned how to face their trauma and come to terms with what happened to them.

Though they had come to terms with their trauma years ago, they continued to meet in Radiant Garden's community center every month out of a sense of camaraderie. They all kept coming back for the chance to trade stories of what was happening in their lives and to discuss recent Coalition news. And as the group members came and went before meetings they would run into Radiant Garden citizens who would wish them all well. Though nobody in the room was completely blameless for their actions under Xehanort's influence (whether manipulation or straight up possession), the people of the Daybreak Coalition had been remarkably forgiving. It helped that everyone actively worked to atone for their actions.

 _Of course,_ Even thought to himself regretfully. _Most of us were as manipulated as Riku and Terra were. Dilan and I, on the other hand, have seen, said, and done too much to ever fully forgive myself._ While Xehanort had taken advantage of Ienzo's youthful innocence to get what he wanted from Ansem, Dilan and Even hadn't needed much convincing to join up at all. Their scientific curiosity overrode their common sense and their consciences, and they were probably Xehanort's most ardent supporters short of Braig himself. And when they became Nobodies, as Vexen and Xaldin they embraced their lack of emotion, not out of sociopathy, but because it provided a temporary (though they didn't know that at the time) relief from the guilt that had been keeping them awake at night for months leading up to the Fall.

And once they were revived as whole, complete beings once more, all the guilt came rushing back at them all at once. It took six months before the Radiant Garden Restoration Committee released them from house arrest with the promise of redemption in exchange for helping to rebuild the world they had helped destroy. And that time left plenty of room for brooding, angst, and self-loathing. Fortunately, the six months of being confined to their old bedrooms helped burn all the angst out of their system and give them a goal to strive towards. And now that they were respected members of society once more, the guilt had faded. For most of them at least.

While serving in the United Coalition Army helped Dilan and Aeleus overcome their guilt, and Ienzo's decision to hang up his lab coat in shame lifted a psychological burden off the young prince's shoulders, for Even, the guilt and regret still lingered. While the Xehanort Survivor's Anonymous meetings helped give him suggestions to help overcome the turmoil inside himself, the former Number IV of the organization feared that his guilt would never truly be satisfied. Most of the other members of their little support group caught on to his melancholy attitude and inquired as to what was wrong. He explained how he was feeling in regards to the lingering guilt over his actions, and the response this time wasn't from any of the former apprentices of Ansem the Wise, but from Xion

"You've got to stop dwelling on the past," the raven haired girl explained. "Not that what happened to any of us wasn't heinous and wrong, but at some point you need to stop feeling guilty and start moving forward. Otherwise you'll be brooding and moping for the rest of your life." The surprisingly insightful advice from the Organization's former number fourteen was what Even needed to get out of his funk. While they had been civil to each other out of respect for what they'd been through, Xion had harbored a deep resentment towards the Chilly Academic, since he was indirectly responsible for everything she'd been through prior to her "death".

The comforting tone in her voice indicated that after five years, she had finally forgiven him for his role in what had happened to her. And the fact that his own creation had forgiven him finally gave Even the push he needed to forgive himself and move forward. After the meeting, he thanked Xion for her advice, and since Even wasn't really a hugging person, they settled for a friendly handshake. Though Xehanort and Braig had brought them all together with manipulation and lies, the surviving members of the original Organization XIII continued to stick together out of friendship and camaraderie. They had become a sort of large extended family to each other over the years. An emotionally dysfunctional one, but a family nonetheless.

* * *

 **I figured that it had been a while since we got a chapter focused on the other former Organization members, so I decided it would be fun to have a chapter showing the growth and development of Xehanort Survivors Anonymous. I threw in the Vexen and Xion bit because they never really spoke to each other in the games, so I wanted to have them interacting together a little bit. I know I originally said that there would be fourteen chapters, but after examining the material I'd laid out for this series of one-shots, it turned out that I really only had enough slice of life episodes for 12. So after I post the last chapter tomorrow, I'm going to take a few days off before starting on the next installment of the Acolytes of Chaos saga, Kingdom Hearts V: Balance of Power.**


	12. Episode 12: Preparations For War

**This is it people, the final chapter of Before The Storm. This one's going to be focused on Maleficent and her history. Those of you who remember the hints I placed back in The Xehanort War about Maleficent's ex, prepare yourselves because the answer will soon be revealed. Lots of American Dragon: Jake Long references coming up this chapter.**

* * *

 **Episode 12: Preparations for War:**

 **The Kiln – Lily's Bedroom; December 2020:**

Maleficent allows a warm smile to creep across her faces as she watches Hades playing a game of checkers with their turquoise-skinned daughter on the floor of her green and blue bedroom themed bedroom. A storage chest along the far wall most of the toys, board games, and books they could smuggle aboard for her thanks to the Red Skull's connections on Earth. They had to be careful not to attract any unwanted attention, but the Lord of the Underworld and Mistress of All Evil had done their best to provide for their daughter. Maleficent always wanted Lily to be raised in a palace, not the burned out wreckage of an intergalactic prison.

But she also understood that such an ostentatious and open residence would only attract the ire of her many enemies, and in any case, Lily was happy. Oh, she wanted to go out and play with kids her own age, and Maleficent was careful to take her only to places in Earth's magical community where she wouldn't be recognized. The Dark Dragon had been dead for a decade, but even though he'd left her years ago, her dragon form looked similar enough to her ex-husband to risk attracting attention if she was ever attacked there. Her face scowled in bitterness as she thought back to the cunning and ambitious dragon who'd stolen her heart all those decades ago.

Their whirlwind romance began when she'd found him injured and unconscious at the base of the Forbidden Mountain. She had been on her way home from a raid on a nearby human village that had attacked her people over a land dispute when she stumbled upon his bleeding and broken body. With no other shelter nearby except the abandoned castle she would come to use as her headquarters before moving on to Hollow Bastion, she transformed into a dragon herself and dragged his rather impressive bulk inside the confines of the old courtyard. From there, she nursed him back to health, and romance began to bloom.

The Dark Dragon understood her plight with the humans, having seen similar attitudes cripple his own people. And together they were a force to be reckoned with. Eventually, they were married, and soon after Maleficent was pregnant with her first child. She'd been positively euphoric at the time, only for that fool Stefan to take her joy and smash like throwing an egg against a wall. The death of their child broke the Dark Dragon, and he left her to return to Earth. Without sufficient access to the corridors of darkness at that point in time, she was forced to remain and wallow in her grief alone. The kindhearted if extreme protector of fairy kind died that day, and the Mistress of All Evil was born.

But now was not the time to dwell on the past and all that she had lost. Now was the time to be celebrating everything she'd gained from the road her ex's departure had put her on. She was happily married and busy raising a beautiful little girl. But no matter how how much Lilly enjoyed her bedroom with blue, green, and purple paint splashed all over the metal walls, Maleficent reminded herself that despite their ability to rework their surroundings to their favor, The Kiln was still a prison. In order for them to reclaim their rightful place as rulers of the universe, she and her cabal needed to fight.

And in order to do that, she needed someone she trusted. The new recruits all served their purposes, but outside of Hades and Captain Hook, only one of her original council was still alive. And, she realized, with Malekith's shadiness, Seymour's apparent nihilism, and Demon's zealous hatred of humans, she needed someone in her inner circle who she trusted completely. Someone who could be relied on to play all the rebellious factions against each other while remaining completely loyal to her and her alone. It was time, she decided to break Loki out of prison.

* * *

 **The Dark Dragon's arrival in Enchanted Dominion is after Lao Shi beat him during the flashbacks in the episode Hong Kong Knights, and his return to Earth was roughly a decade later.**

 **Well folks, this is the end of Before The Storm. I'm going to take tomorrow off, and then on Thursday I'll be posting the prologue to Kingdom Hearts V: Balance of Power. This will be the last story in this saga that will be a series of one-shots, and the last prequel as well. From here on out, the plot keeps moving forwards. After Kingdom Hearts V will come S.A.C.K., S.H.I.E.L.D., and C.I.N., which takes place at the exact same time. After SS &C will come Kingdom Hearts VI and the end of the saga. My goal is to have this entire ongoing saga finished by New Year's so that I can move on to other projects where my fanfiction is concerned. **


End file.
